by Casey Lea
“I’ve no skill with gloating,” he admitted softly. “Too little chance, mayhap. I’ve more experience with being gloated at. That’s a major part of losing Honor.”
There was a brief silence before Jileea laughed sardonically and tossed her silver hair, but the gesture made her gasp and clutch her injured arm. She gulped repeatedly, but whether she was swallowing bile, or tears was uncertain.
One thing Wing could sense clearly from her was pain, so he stepped across the corridor and before she could pull away, laid a regen strip on her arm. It curled around her broken wrist and she gasped, while a lone tear stole down her cheek. “Stop,” she ordered thickly, but seemed unable to form any more words.
Wing moved away immediately, with his hands spread wide to either side. See? No threat. It was doubtful she’d hear his thoughts, but perhaps she could feel the emotions. “You must truly hate me,” he stated, and her surprise was exactly what he wanted. She looked up from her injury and he tried a wry smile.
“My scan shows you used a gene-tailored, combinant anaesthetic to knock me out. That must have cost credit plus and taken true patience to apply. How much time did it take to introduce each part and then wait for it to pass my met field with no alert? Hours? And how many times did you need to repeat that? How long did it finally take to introduce each innocent component, until the total drug was present in my cells to combine and activate? Days?”
“Weeks, to be safest,” Jileea rasped and Wing sensed more surprise from her.
“So, I figure you must hate me,” he concluded, but she shook her finger in denial, before freezing with a scowl.
“Why… why am I telling so much?” She dropped her head to study her arm, before laboriously looking up so she could glare at Wing. “My arm, the warmth. It’s more than healing. You put a relaxant in the regen strip” she accused, and he raised a forefinger in acknowledgement.
“It was needed. Don’t be annoyed that it’s helping the conversation. Dialogue really only works when both people speak and your tough, resentful act wasn’t helping.”
“It’s not supposed to help you,” she admitted bluntly, before shaking her head in an effort to clear it. “Drak. My tough, resentful act, as you judge it, was supposed to see you dead.”
Wing tried to smile, but he could find no warmth to put behind it. Without Darsey his throat would now be very cut. Curse all pirates. This wasn’t the life he’d been raised to.
“Your attempt to kill me is irrelevant-” Jileea laughed, but he ignored the interruption. “It no longer matters, because we have the same enemy. Greon is the true target and we need to strike combined if we want to win.”
He paused for Jileea’s reaction, but she swayed slightly, and then yawned. Her expression was rapidly becoming as listless as Darsey’s. He surely knew how to bring out the best in females. “Stay with me, Jil.”
“Now you ask.” She yawned again. “You know Greon’s watching all this?”
“Not, actually. At present, he’s watching me hand you to the mutt.”
Wing’s reminder of the punishment she must have heard Greon order had the desired effect. Jileea straightened against the wall and her forehead crinkled in an effort to concentrate. “So you’re sending a false feed to the Leader. Why?”
“If you’re keen to start your date…”
“No,” she blurted, and her lips creased. “I mean, that’s all right. Dialogue’s better than such. Though I don’t know where your thoughts are. I want to be leader and you’re right. You are certain-sure in my way. Your rank comes first. It’ll be easy-as to put down Greon once I’m senior. So why would I work with you?”
“Because you’re not that stupid. It’s never going to be easy to put down Greon. Senior or other. I’m in a position to know and I know that I can’t make it work. Unless…”
Jileea’s head jerked up to bang against the wall. “Ow. I catch you. It won’t work unless you have an ally. Someone with full system access, but someone you can trust. Someone like me.”
“Exactly like,” the kres admitted.
Jileea tipped her head to one side, as if trying to think about his proposition, but then her body tilted too. Her legs went from under her and she thumped onto her bottom, still leaning against the wall, but back on the corridor floor.
“More ow.”
Wing sighed and took a stride so that he could crouch before her. Their eyes were level and he studied her with exasperation. “I suspect I used too much relaxant-”
“Nah,” Jileea denied, and turned her head away, defiant again.
However, that movement revealed something unexpected, something Nightwing had seen on mermaridian before, but never on the Rim and never on Jileea. Swinging away from him exposed her throat and, with it, two lines of bright tattoos that had previously been camouflaged by her com.
Wing rocked forward on the balls of his feet, razorback quick and his hand flashed out to grasp Jileea’s chin. She realized her mistake and tried to duck her head, but was unable to free herself from his grip. She stiffened instead and her lips twisted with shame. However, she made no further effort to stop him from tilting her head.
There was silence while Wing studied the markings on either side of her throat. Each tattooed strip ran along the bottom of her jaw line from its mid-point on either side and down her neck to stop when it reached her shoulders. The colors in the rows of symbols were bright and the detailing superb.
“A genuine lineage tattoo,” Wing murmured.
Jileea’s lips twisted further and she tried to twist her head away too, but the kres’ grip tightened. In fact, he scarcely noticed the attempted movement. His mind and com were busy deciphering the hieroglyphs that traced high-caste mermaridian ancestry, with the maternal line on the right side and paternal on the left. There was not much of note on the left, a Council Comet a few generations back and a Harvester Sickle before that, but on the right… Wing hissed quietly and finally released Jileea’s chin. “What’s a Luck’s daughter doing on the Rim?”
She scowled at the question. “How does one of Kresynt’s royal brats get disHonored?”
“Family quarrel,” Wing answered levelly, and felt more surprise from Jileea at such honesty.
She considered his response and started to laugh. She threw her head back and howled, despite Wing’s low growl.
“What’s funny?”
“You,” she accused, slurring the word with delight. “You think you’re superior plus. You thin’ kres are so much more than the rest of us, but your family sold you too.” He tried to answer, to deny it, but she raised a finger to halt his heated response. “Yes, they did. Don’ care if it was for rank, marriage or money. Politics, culture or cash. It’s no matter. They sold you an’ you fought it, so here you are.”
Nightwing’s anger seeped away, swallowed in ice. A familiar chill spread from his heart and he realized with dread that it was too late to stop it. He didn’t need a mirror to know how he looked, with his face set still and so expressionless that he might be a statue. An image of his hated Uncle, with a hard face and predator’s eyes.
Jileea gulped for air and was abruptly talking, apparently without much thought or sense. She threw words at him as if they were scraps that might appease this unexpected stranger.
“I’m fine. We’re all fine, ye? All good? No-one’s going to… to hurt anyone. Right? So, what’s the deal as such? How do we team? I help you take down the Leader and you keep me from the mutt? That’s great, that’s good, certain-sure.”
There was a brief, frigid moment and then Wing felt something shift inside. The change was small, much less than a thaw, but it must have shown, because Jileea breathed a sigh and sagged to the floor.
“That’s part,” the kres agreed slowly, “but there’s more. If you back me when I call, you get the ship. I’ll gift you the Bandit and be gone.”
“Wha’?” Jileea gaped at him, while her numbed neural paths presumably scrambled to comprehend such an offer. “What? I get to b
e leader? When? Next era?”
“Soon-as.”
Her lips shaped ‘no’, but without sound, and Wing held her gaze.
“Yes,” he insisted, trying to drive that word through her drug-induced fog with all of the conviction he could. “I’ve no care for the Bandit. It’s nothing to me and so is being its leader. No insult, Jileea, but I want more.”
The mermaridian studied him with obvious disbelief. “What’s more than your own ship?”
Wing hesitated over the word, but managed to push it out. “Honor. My Honor and my people. I have a duty I ran from...” He stopped abruptly and waved his hand, brushing aside unnecessary details. “I just wish to get my life back and I need a lift in the Bandit. That’s all. I’ve no idea where yet, but I’ll wager it’s on the Rim. One ride and you can be leader.”
Jileea’s lip curled and she looked at Nightwing with obvious disdain. “You want to crawl back home. Luck! Back to cosy Kresville. Drakkit, Wing, I always thought you had orbs. You think I’d run to Mermaridia if I could? Never. I’m here by choice and I’ll stay by choice. This is my ship. Sure, my father lost me in a bet and my owner was dung, so I ran, but that’s not over me any more. I could have stopped being Debted last year. I earned enough credits to pay the wager, buy my freedom and run home full legal. Forget that. I can fly here, even if you can’t.”
The kres abruptly stood, his hair stirring around the ship’s crest braided down one side in painful shame. “Sorry to disappoint. Such is a habit of mine. But back-now, perhaps you won’t find it so easy to fly when you’re in with the mutt. Do we deal or not?”
Jileea paused in her tirade and fear flickered across her face again. “Alright,” she said carefully. “I like the deal. How do I know you’ll keep to it?”
Wing grinned in response and hoped his smile was as chilling as any of Greon’s. “What choice do you have? Mutt or no mutt? If I tell them that you’re rankless and to enjoy themselves, they will. But if I say instead just to share quarters, you can easily keep them from sharing more. Certain-sure, if you’ve got a com. One of mine. Greon will want yours compressed. As for the chance to lead when Greon is tossed, think of that as a potential bonus. One that needs to be earned. So, when I ask for help, will you give it?”
Jileea’s top lip puckered and Nightwing leaned forward expectantly, until her mouth opened in another yawn. He stifled a curse and his fists clenched uselessly, but she flapped a hand in lazy reassurance. “You push… hard bargain, kres.”
“Is that yes?”
“What do you hear?”
“Not enough.”
Jileea’s eyelids drooped and then fluttered, before she finally managed to focus on Nightwing. He leaned forward until their faces almost touched and she licked her lips before answering distinctly and with exaggerated care. “Yes, Senior, I’m yours. Luck-bound, for whatever, whenever you need.”
19
Friendly Fire
Freefall FarFlight held himself completely still while a scan shattered his cells. He stood ramrod straight, as stiff as his purple and gold uniform, refusing to wince at the energy field rummaging through the DNA in his right cheek. The pain was unexpected and it took all of his com-enhanced control to remain expressionless when it coursed along his scar. He had to struggle to hide his shock at the violation. After the security he had already passed through, such an in-depth probe was redundant. It would normally be used only in times of war or potential plot. The scan was a calculated slight that sent a message as clear as his pain.
Freefall may have been summoned by the Arck, but he was still in deep disfavor. His stomach clenched when he realized that he’d get no help during his audience with the Thousand. Even his family’s oldest supporters would stay silent rather than risk this Arck’s displeasure. It was impossible for Freefall to stand any straighter, but his lips clamped together with the same anger and outspoken pride that had led to his disHonor in the first place. The unfairness of Arck Sharpeye’s dictatorial rule started a familiar slow fire in his gut, but he tried to control it. Not this time, he ordered himself silently. Be sweet, be subservient and lick feather.
“Passed,” the ceremonial guard standing toe-to-toe with Freefall stated and the scan flickered before releasing a final malicious surge and dying away.
The court functionary gestured for Freefall to move on, but the young Leader stood motionless, struggling to recover from that final burst. Only when he was sure that he could walk without staggering did Freefall step around the ebon-and-gold clad guard. However, he stopped again and turned back to hold the gaze of his interrogator. It was not easy to make eye contact within the guard’s bright and ornate helm, but Freefall persevered until the other shifted uneasily and looked away.
“Passed?” the fleet officer queried softly, testing his authority and voice, which, to his relief, was steady.
“Passed, sah,” the guard amended and Freefall flicked a finger in grim acceptance of the courtesy.
He turned away in apparent dismissal, but his dread of what was waiting in the supplicants’ hall grew stronger. The gossip about his position must be bad indeed if court flunkies were testing his dominance. Freefall tried to throw his shoulders back and discovered that his body was still as straight as biomechanics allowed. He was as ready as he could be and he strode forward to pass through the dulled door field. He was unsurprised to find that it was also on full scan and it thickened briefly as though reluctant to release him. Freefall had to push forward to leave the welcome port, plucking the hem of his cloak free from the door and straightening his collar before he climbed ten wide steps to the pristine surface of the atrium.
Freefall’s footsteps rang out clearly as he stepped up into an open space of light and cold. His combat boots snapped against the glacier supporting the highest level of the palace. He marched past a local emitter and it overrode his com, cancelling his boots’ adhesion field, but Free had walked the ice since infancy and had no trouble keeping his balance. The glare was more difficult. The ceiling and wall projections had been switched off, which he expected, but even the basic courtesy of a shade field was missing. The frozen bridge ahead was white fire, making him squint despite his nictitating membranes. They could protect his eyes from the cold, but their shade was almost useless in such extreme conditions. It was impossible to see the door ahead, since the crystal canopy arching over it had lost its usual tint and was now intensifying the light beneath. Drak Sharpeye to all the seven hells-
Free took a very deep and extremely cold breath that chilled his anger nicely. Sweet. Calm. He squinted along the bright path, but the two hands of guards standing at its far end were almost invisible. He knew that they were there, but only because his shaded eyes caught flashes of burnished titanium. However, he made his way confidently forward as though he could see them clearly. His fronds bushed in the chill as they also struggled to keep a clear sense of the distant guards.
Free breathed out as hard as he could with each step and his breath plumed around him, subduing the light reflected back from the ice. That rising cloud helped to protect his eyes, but it also made focusing on the far end of the bridge impossible. He walked on blindly and steered a course across that exposed walkway by following the faint frond touch of the guards’ minds. He realized that he was indeed on the right course only when his eyes detected a patch of darkness in the brilliance ahead. The door to the supplicants’ hall must be close and that was confirmed when he passed the first of the guards.
They stood motionless and unresponsive, with their minds well shielded, ten on either side of a door that filled the far end of the atrium. They fanned outwards from the entrance as though welcoming supplicants, but Free always felt they were funnelling him to the darkness beyond. He resolutely ignored their closing ranks as that door grew dimly before him, until it dominated his horizon. It was black, massive and made of real stone. Unlike the energy-based illusions that served the rest of the palace, it was the solid remnant of an earlier citadel that had hous
ed the FarFlights nearly nine thousand years ago.
Free completed the gauntlet of the atrium and was forced to stop. He blinked at the weathered stone just before his face, while it sat resolutely grounded in the ice. Engravings, blurred by time and the after effects of the dazzling floor, remained motionless in front of him and the young Leader struggled with anger again. No, this is what he wishes, an approach filled with fury and all thought lost in feeling. Free made a supreme effort and controlled his emotions with all of the maturity that had brought him command of a ship, despite his youth and his past disHonor. He closed his eyes and relaxed, to stand less stiffly than he had at any time since being summoned to court.
Free’s restraint brought an instant response. He felt rather than heard movement in the door and opened his eyes in time to see it rise before his face. A squeal from the encroaching ice when the door broke free from the floor was the only sound before the massive block moved smoothly upwards. It climbed as high as his chest, and then stopped just as silently. His heart sank when he realized that he would have to duck beneath it to appear before the Thousand.
“So much for a dignified entrance,” Free muttered, and smiled wryly, before leaning forward to peer beneath the lintel.
The door was three metres thick and even the blaze from the atrium could not penetrate to the far side. He felt as though he had gone truly blind when he struggled to look past it with his ocular membranes still darkening his vision. They drew back, but left behind smears of red and green, unwanted after-images of the brilliant walkway behind him.